Superman Returns Introspective
by Maryse Bardolph
Summary: A brief window into Superman's thoughts as he flies from his meeting with Lois to the Fortress in Superman Returns. Follows movie plotline canon.


Even if he had an apartment, he wouldn't go back to it. It would be at this point only a set of rooms, without the stamp of his personality – of any of his personalities – upon it, and without those touches of his life, those little mementoes, he had no use for an apartment. He did not need to sleep, not truly, and inactivity only made the memories of her return more powerfully. He did not need to eat, either. He did so only to keep up appearances, and for the pleasure of discovering new flavors, new combinations of tastes. In the past, he had flown home for dinner, the distance nothing to him, or had dined out with Lois.

They tormented him, those memories. They would pop into his train of thought at any time, reminding him of his joy and his failure. He could not hear a helicopter's whirring blades without remembering how they met, nor pass her old apartment without thinking of that interview. The scent of cigarette smoke brought her vice to mind, and brushing past a woman wearing chiffon evoked that spur-of-the-moment flight with her.

Even the Fortress of Solitude was haunted for him now, the places where she had walked, where she had slept in his arms… He had avoided it, going there only to build the ship, and at the time the possible existence of Krypton had seemed such a blessing. He hadn't even been back to the Fortress since his return from that wasteland.

Ah, it was more than even he could deal with. Why had he even come to Metropolis? Granted, it had been wonderful to zip back and forth across the globe, greeted by surprised exclamations and delighted cheers. And in this city more than any other, his return had been spectacular, catching the plane (with Lois on it – but he forced the thought away) and foiling those bank robbers. The look on that man's face when the bullet rebounded from his eye! A justifiable pride filled him, the glory in his own abilities and the simple _rightness_ of using them for good. That drive that the Germans call _funktionslust_, the desire to do what you are best at, what you are destined to do, was strong in him. It was as much Jonathan's doing as Jor-El's, as much Kansas open-heartedness as Kryptonian mission of mercy.

Of course, there was that woman whose brakes were out. Her 'heart palpitations,' indeed! He felt vaguely tarnished, embarrassed by her fawning. Lois had never seemed so … so …

There she was in his mind again, her own courage and spunk a sharp contrast to any other woman he'd ever met. There would never be another like Lois.

And there should not be! Hadn't his obsession with her nearly cost the entire world its freedom? Hadn't he told himself, a thousand times, that he had to choose for the greater good of all humanity, that Jor-El had been right after all? Hadn't he erased her memories, to free her from the burden of his mistake? Why was he still thinking of those times, that brief interlude when he had been only her lover, not the world's savior?

Why had he gone to her on the rooftop, coaxed her into flying with him? Oh, he'd told himself it was for the interview, that no one else could possibly understand him as she did. And because she hadn't understood, had been so angry with him for leaving. Her comment while trying to get a cab had proven that, her answer to Richard's question even more. Even if it was best that he keep a certain distance between them, he had to explain. He couldn't let her think she meant nothing to him. That was the furthest thing from the truth, and it wounded her. She should not have to suffer for his mistake.

He had told himself those things, and when she gasped with shock at seeing the ground so far away, clinging to him, all of those reasons had melted away before the reality of her fragile heart beating so hard within the protective circle of his arms. He knew then that every noble purpose had been at the root about this moment, about pressing his cheek to Lois' hair and feeling his love for her leap in his chest.

After the flight, so close, so very close to kissing him, and then she had drawn back. "Richard's a good man, and you've been gone a long time."

He'd had the presence of mind, then, to whisk downstairs ahead of her and stuff a burrito in his mouth to keep himself from speaking to either of them. He couldn't trust himself to be more than barely civil to Richard, not then.

Richard White! He was quite disturbed by his feelings toward Lois' fiancé. Even the phrase sent strange tremors through his abdomen, made something deep in his chest burn smolderingly, phenomena he had never experienced. Perhaps he had taken more harm from Krypton's radiation than he knew, and those pangs were a symptom of some obscure illness. If so, then his peculiar mental deterioration was probably connected.

Richard White was a good man, a good father, and by all accounts Lois was happy with him. The kind of man whom he would have liked for a friend, once upon a time. But watching them together, the way Richard touched her hand, the gratuitous kisses, even the way he played with Jason, made strange thoughts rise like noxious fumes in his mind. Had Perry's nephew walked up to him when he had first seen the photograph, first understood that Lois loved another man, he thought that he might have harmed Richard.

That was the axle upon which his deepening madness spun; hurting Richard. Never before had he wanted to harm a human. Not even the cruelest of them was more than a fragile paper doll next to his strength, and even with criminals he was careful not to crumple them. Even the one in the diner who had taken advantage of his brief weakness had received retribution more symbolic than real, when it was within his power to simply wring him out like a rag.

This rage at Richard … this desire to strike out, to harm … was utterly foreign to him. He could only conclude that the Kryptonite radiation from his destroyed birthworld had affected his mind, leaving him unbalanced. And there was only one place he could go to discover a cure for this disease.

To the Fortress, to consult with his parents. Perhaps Lara; he would have to admit that he had seen Lois again, and Jor-El would not be pleased. But Lara could help him. If ever a citizen of Krypton had carried such a burden as this unreasoning hate, these strange physical pains, surely there would be some record of it, some idea of how to treat it.

In that spirit of confidence, Kal-El flew northward, eager to seek advice from the almost limitless data stored in the crystals.

The crystals that, little did he know it, were no longer there. It would be much later, after nearly dying, after testing his strength and courage to their limits, that the Man of Steel would discover the name of his debilitating illness: jealousy.


End file.
